


life is strange 2 poems

by spotsuns



Series: poems for life is strange characters [1]
Category: Life Is Strange 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Poetry, death and general upsetting thoughts tw for lone wolf, references to sean/finn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-01-02 17:00:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21165044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spotsuns/pseuds/spotsuns
Summary: These started as word vomit at 4 am and they still are, but I figured I would post them as a little something between big uploads on the wastelands fic. I’m definitely planning on doing more of these types of poems for other characters as well maybe even lis1 characters if I get around to it! I hope u enjoy!





	1. sean

you are seven years old when you’re informed that you have a little brother growing inside of your mother’s belly.

you aren’t sure what to make of the idea quite yet, but when you imagine your family as four, your little heart races. you imagine holding him, teaching him everything that you know. you wonder how much he’ll look like you. you’re excited to be a big brother.

your mother doesn’t hold your hand as much as she used to. she stops walking you to the bus stop. she stops reading to you at night. your father tells you that she’s just tired, that this is just a part of it, and that she’ll go back to being herself once the baby is here. you wonder why you’re not enough for her now.

when he is born he is tiny and wrinkled and he screams louder than anything you have ever heard. they name him daniel, like the archangel. she won’t hold him, so you do instead. he looks so vulnerable, even in your own weak little arms, and you cry for a reason you cannot yet understand. 

you decide you don’t like having a brother after all, because now mom has changed, and months and months go by and she’s less herself than the last. ‘_ this only happened since he came along’ _is what you tell yourself, but that’s not fair, and it’s not true. 

there is something inside you that tells you that it has always been building up to this. maybe it’s the way she’s never looked like you, or maybe it’s the way she always glances at the front door sometimes when she thinks you and your father aren’t looking. something has always told you this wasn’t built to last, and neither was she. 

you are eight years old when she leaves and doesn’t come back home. you ask your father if this is also just a part of it. he doesn’t answer, he just tells you it’s time for bed, and daniel is crying from his bassinet. he sounds hurt, like a part of him has been torn away. you’re jealous that screaming like that is frowned upon at your age, it’s not fair. 

when you hear your father cry at night you go to him. you ask him what you’ve done wrong. he looks at you with tears in his eyes, and he says ‘_ nothing, mijo. there’s nothing you’ve done, there’s nothing wrong with you. never.’ _

then why is it that you feel like this is all your fault? then why is it that you feel like this is a burden you carry on your small shoulders alone?

maybe if you hadn’t been so needy. maybe if you had just kept your hands in your pockets. maybe if you had just walked yourself to the bus stop. maybe if you has just gone to sleep. maybe if your brother hadn’t been born. 

there is nothing harder than pretending like she never existed to begin with, but it’s what you must do to grow. cut the weeds down, she never had roots in you anyway. holding onto her ghost will only hold you back, and phantoms don’t make good parents. 

you envy daniel, for he will not have to live with her leaving, only her absence. you will grow to learn that neither of these was ever ideal. she left holes in both of you. 

your father does the best he can to carry the weight of two parents. he tries to pretend that it’s fine, that a labor of love is easy work, but you have a job by the time you’re fifteen. you don’t get the luxury of being a child, you must fill the shoes she left on the front porch. 

you learn to find an escape wherever you can and you find it in art. you draw on anything you can get your hands on; on your homework, in your journal, on your bedroom walls, on lyla’s arm with a pen. you draw everything around you, your life, all the people in it, everything you love. 

you know better than anybody that everything is temporary. you want a reminder of what was once there when it’s gone, when it’s gone. 

you pick up track and field and it comes to you even quicker than art did. you’re quick as a fox, _ the silver runner _. everybody calls you a natural, you try not to think of the implications of why. you won’t ever be like her, you refuse it. 

things are never easy, but you think about her less these days, and it’s an improvement if any. you stopped saying her name years ago, and now it feels like a dirty word in your mouth, one that’s forbidden to speak. say her name in a mirror three times fast and nothing would happen. she’s a lousy ghost. 

home starts feeling like home again for the first time since she left. it only took eight years. it’s already time for graduation, for college, for the things that at one point you weren’t so sure you would make it to, and here they are right under your nose; a sketch you can remember starting but can’t remember finishing. you can’t decide if you like it or not. 

you are sixteen years old when it all comes crumbling down and you have to run like it’s all you’ve ever known. you have to do it for him you have to do it for him _ you have to do it for him, for him, for him. _ this is all your fault. you always knew it. now this _ is _your burden to carry alone. 

_miss you, dad. _

you can’t cry, because he doesn’t know that you can’t go back home. you can’t cry, because he doesn’t know that your dad is dead. you can’t cry because he doesn’t know that this is a nightmare there is no waking up from, and you cannot fix it, you cannot wake up. 

you are also a child. nobody’s ever seemed to care about that, especially not _ her, _and they really won’t now that you’re just a cop murderer, and not a normal teenage boy. add that identity to the list of things you’ve lost that you’ll never get back over things you never did. 

you’re up in the woods, howling at the moon, sleeping in a den; you are two wolf brothers, and you are all you have left. 

you are homeward bound and it’s a long road ahead, you know you’ve got everything and nothing to lose. you know without a doubt that you would draw blood for him. you know without a doubt that you probably will. 

you bare your teeth and you bare your claws, you are a sheep in wolf’s clothing. who herds you at night when he is put to bed? you must be your own sanctuary now. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These started as word vomit at 4 am and they still are, but I figured I would post them as a little something between big uploads on the wastelands fic. I’m definitely planning on doing more of these types of poems for other characters as well maybe even lis1 characters if I get around to it! I hope u enjoy!


	2. finn

when you are born you are held lovingly in your big brothers’ arms. it is the first warmth you ever feel.

_ ‘finnegan’ _ has always felt too big a name for you, you are only ‘finn’, just like how your brothers call you. you know this is who you will always be. 

as you grow they hold you tight and huddle you up between themselves until they can’t keep him from you anymore.

your childhood is spent in junkyards as much as it is spent in school; in the back of a stolen car, speeding down backroads, your skin eating pavement.

you tell yourself you are a child of anarchy, but you are only a child of his. there is no rebellion in this, you were never given any choice.

your father teaches you how to throw knives when you are eight years old. sometimes it feels like the target is painted on your back instead of the tree, and you look over your shoulder at him to find him staring at you like that’s exactly where he put it.

you are loyal, you are self-sacrificing, you are full of love, love, love. your father has never liked a dull blade, and when you fall and cry he does not pick you up. you learn early on that loving is harder than anything else. 

when he slides the knife into your back, you wonder when you blinked and missed it, and why you can’t hold onto your brothers’ hands anymore. they will not let you. 

jail is cold and lonely and it smells like piss and you are so angry that you try taking it out on the concrete wall. you break your hand. there is nobody there to kiss the pain away from your knuckles when they bruise. 

you tell yourself you won’t let go of love, though. love is everything that makes the world go ‘round, and someday it will be the most useful thing you have. 

when you get out you have your freedom at the cost of everything. you are nobody. your life starts here. 

you build your family again over time, people as lost and as broken as you are. you wonder if you are as well-intended as you think yourself to be. do you surround yourself with them because you have trauma in common, or is it to make yourself feel better about your own?

you want to be better, but sometimes you still hear his voice. you miss your brothers.

you see more of the country in three years than most people see their whole lives. 

you find him the first time where you least expect to, just like any good gem. he is soft voice, he is warm eyes, he is like you in every way that you are not. 

when you part ways, it feels like two magnets going in opposite directions. you try to ignore it.

you find him the second time when you thought he was gone for good, a seed carried by wind, one that is never meant to be held onto, the kind you used to shove into your pockets as a boy. 

you realize he is more like you than you ever could have imagined, and you wonder when you’ll stop judging books by their covers. maybe this is where your love for classic literature comes from.

you want to touch him. you want to reach out and dip your hands into all that is him. you can not do this, you know it too well, so you drown him in honey and hope that he feels it on his skin even when you are not there, like lipstick kisses on love letters. _ honey _ , _ sweetie _ , _ sweetheart _. 

you wonder if you should have let go of love when you had the chance, this hurts more than you can bear. you wish you could cut out everything from the time in your life before him, and whatever will come after; your birth, your death.

when he says he likes boys you feel like your skin is on fire. you have flown too close to the sun and now your wings are melting. you hope when you hit the ground that he’ll be down there waiting for you.

there is magic in love, and here is the proof. you feel jealousy for it. why couldn’t this have been yours when he put the knife in your back? why weren’t you allowed to weaponize what happened to you this way? 

suddenly, he is leaving, and it feels like you are thirteen all over again. losing him is losing family, and that’s the one thing you swore you’d never do ever again. it’s not an option. you refuse to act like it is. 

you make the choice to go back to your childhood for him. love makes you stupid, and you always knew it would be your undoing. 

when he trusts you it feels like you have been handed the universe and you hold it now in your hands, in your heart, in the spaces between your breaths. you don’t want to keep it to yourself. you split it open for him, you tear up the cosmos, you lay every star bare—and when he sees your constellations, you know that you made the right choice when you didn’t let go of love. 

when you kiss him, the world stops. there is no beginning or ending to this story, there is only him, there is only this. when it’s all over with, you swear you will never take this for granted, you pinky-promise. 

it’s a dog-eat-dog world, but you’ve never been one of them—you are too driven by love. this is a lesson you learn the hard way. love is not a casino, you can not win it on greed. there is no jackpot to come of this. 

when you wake up in the hospital, your legs feel like lead, but that isn’t what you notice first. he is not here. this is your penance for wanting what you can not have. 

the days go by like years, and you’d give your life just to know if he is okay, even if you don’t deserve it. you are nobody. 

when he taps on your window, you wonder what you did right to finally dream of him after all the nightmares.

you look at the mess you have made in the flesh. this is not the honey you wished to drown him in. you are a wasp, you always have been, you only know how to destroy.

he forgives you, like how god forgives sinners. it does not change anything, it only serves to comfort you for what you have done, and you will both live with the consequences of your actions. call it love, call it greed—it doesn’t matter now. 

you tell him you love him. you don’t know if you can live with any of this, but you could never live in a world where he didn’t know this, and that is what you _ do _ know, it is the _ only _ thing you know.

when he leaves, you want to follow. you want to take off and hit the ground running, to make up for the mess you have made. you want to hold his hand. you want to kiss him again. you want to fix it. but it’s never mattered what you want, though, has it? 

you want to blame your father, but you can’t. you did it this time. it was your knife. it was in your hand. you poked out his eye with it. now neither of you have a brothers left. 

you can only hope that one day you will get a postcard in the mail, one from _ puerto lobos, _and you will know that love was worth holding onto. 

for now you send your love, and you hope it will reach him, and here you are. you are nowhere. 


	3. daniel

messy boy; rambunctious boy; _ wild, wild, wild. _ it seems like all the things that make you are things undesired. maybe that’s being a kid, or maybe that’s just you. only time and circumstance will tell.

you have always felt like an incomplete picture. there is something missing and you don’t know where it went; a puzzle piece lost under the coffee table of your childhood home. a part of you is out there and you just wish you could find it, wish to see what you look like when you’re finished. you want to know what wholeness feels like. 

your brother won’t tell you what your mother was like, he won’t even call her _ mom _ , no—she’s _ karen. _ it makes you angry, because you don’t know _ karen_, but you can imagine mom_. mom _ is a figure, _ mom _ is a concept, there’s a set idea of what _ mom _is supposed to be and your little mind can wrap your head around her, but karen is a person you’ve never met, and he knows this. and he’s met her and you haven’t, and it’s not fair, and she doesn’t want to meet you, or else she’d be here, but she’s not.

your brother is getting bigger and older and he doesn’t ever want to spend time with you anymore and it hurts like a betrayal, and you wonder why you know what that feels like, then you go play with your toys alone. it makes you feel like an old sweater, shoved into the back of his closet, outgrown and unloved. you love him so much more than you can say yet, you can’t tell him it hurts you. you wonder if he knows. you wonder if he just doesn’t care.

unsaid words come in the form of sentiments. the watch he gave you that you wear even now that you’re starting to outgrow it. the toy he won for you at the fair that’s creepy and you turn to face the wall at night, but you can’t get rid of it, you won’t get rid of it. the drawing of your favorite character he made for your birthday last minute that you stare at every night, wishing he still thought about you even that much, enough to know that it’s even on the wall. 

something is bubbling underneath your skin and you don’t even realize it yet. you are a star that’s about to explode. 

so much happens to you for only being a child doing what children do. this wasn’t supposed to happen to you, and the universe agrees. here it is at your fingertips, use it wisely. no—not like that—or maybe yes, like that, if that’s what you need. stay safe on your travels, we hope you will find a place fit for a little boy to grow big in. this place should have been the right one, we’re sorry it was turned rotten. your father loves you.

there is so much bravery to be found in love, and it’s a lesson you will soon learn the hard way. know this, and take it to heart; he may not know it yet, but he would die for you, and he will try. watch out for him, you are all he has, just as much as he is yours.

you’re in an old stuffy motel room, playing an air guitar and jumping on the creaky bed. it’s odd, sure, but who doesn’t love some spontaneity at your age? you sure do. you’re watching the old television mounted in the corner, older than any piece of technology you’ve ever seen in person before, and your brother looks like he’s been crying. why does he look like he’s been crying? you’ll find out sooner than you think.

you tear apart the motel room without touching a single thing, limb from limb, and if you were any bigger, you know you could tear the whole fucking place down with the force of your devastation alone. but lucky for everybody else, you are only a boy. very unlucky for you, you are only a boy. if only you were bigger. ask your brother, it wouldn’t make this any easier. there’s no age in which you can bring back the dead. so cry now and cry hard, and hold onto your brother. he’s only a boy too. 

you want to be grown up more than anything, and he is killing the child that he was so that you don’t have to kill the one that you are. the adulthood you desire is a luxury that is paid for in blood. all sales are final, no exchanges, no returns. 

you like collecting the pine cones. you keep about eight of them in your backpack, nestled up next to all that you hold dear, all that you have left. yes, that includes the drawing of yourself that your brother made. admit that you still love him now, while you can.

you can tell that he’s tired of you, but you never asked for this, and you don’t particularly want to be stuck with him right now either. he’s wondering why you’re both without; without food, without shelter, without anybody else but yourselves—and here you are, wondering why you’re _ with. _ why are you _ with _the burden of existing as a nuclear weapon? 

why did god decide to take the form of a nine-year-old boy? you were only trying to play in your front yard. that wasn’t very cool of him. can he take it back, please? can he try it again and stay inside this time? can he please find somebody else? you’ll be good. you just want to see your dad again, you just want to go home, please. 

if capability equaled action, that would make everybody a killer, and you’re not. and neither are most people. _ ‘yet.’ _ whispers a voice into your ear. who is that? ‘ _ god.’ _it says. don’t listen to it. 

you snap the puma’s neck. you bury your best friend. these are not the last times that either of these things will happen to you. we’re sorry again. 

you always wanted to fill in the missing gaps of yourself, but this isn’t what you meant, and this wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. weren’t you warned about genies being tricksters? asking for ‘_ a journey of self-discovery’ _was awfully vague. didn’t you know better when you rubbed the bottle? now you’re trapped inside of it. who’s gonna let you out? the answer may surprise you. 

p.s., your mom was never worth the trouble. she still isn’t here, is she? think about it. 

you want to cling to the things that make you feel like a normal boy again. so write them down, then. you like power bear. you like chocolate bars. you like dogs. maybe these are the puzzle pieces you were looking for: puppy nose here, flower petal here, a broken neck—no, not that one. put that one back, that’s not you. don’t look at it. ‘_ don’t lose it. you might need it later.’, _whispers the voice. cover your ears, it doesn’t have to be that way, not if you don’t want it to. 

you start to kind of like your—power? that’s a better word for it, sounds nicer, sounds like something a superhero in your comic books have. it’s cool, it makes you different from everybody else, it makes you feel like you have some control over what happens to you. your brother tells you that it needs to be controlled, to be used _ safely _ and _ responsibly _, but that just sounds like a lengthy way to say you need to be put on a leash to you. what does he think you are? what does he think you’ll do? you realize you don’t even know how to answer those questions. 

anger is a real scary thing when you don’t require any assembly to be apocalyptically destructive. what else are you supposed to do with what has happened to you? nobody seems to have the answer. it’s not getting any better. the detonator is ticking. you don’t know who’s holding the button; you aren’t entirely sure that it’s you. 

worst case scenario, you’re a monster, right? maybe that’s simplifying it. maybe you’re just a kind of boy there’s not a name for yet. some might call you an angel; you think maybe that would be a relief, but when have angels ever been lucky? you’d just have to watch over everybody else. it’s a full-time job, how would you do that with all you’ve got going on already? you tell us, you’re always watching over him. how is it going? what’s he molding you into? what are you becoming?

you like the way it feels when your fingers brush against dandelions. you like the way it feels when you rip them from the soil without a single touch. are these things undesired, too? are you still a wild boy for them? do they make you good, or bad? or are they simply things? who even are you anymore? when will this be over with?

no pressure, but we all know this story is in your hands. will this end in blood or not? what will become of your dear brother? will we see the boy, or will we see the god? take your time, but we all know you’ll pick a side. now give us an ending. 


	4. lone wolf

you’re at a standstill, fully surrounded, and it’s one tick away from blowing up into an all-out shoot-em-out. 

it feels too real, hits too close, to you—who has spent more days feeling like an animal as of late than a boy. it’s not a self-made choice, not anymore, not when this is how the world sees you. you wish you had the luxury of being a little boy again. 

you’re ten years old and there’s an army of guns pointed at you. you’re ten years old, and you’re so young, so small, that even when you know you hold all the power, you still look to him and ask what you’re supposed to do. 

his hands shake, and you can see it in his eyes, he’s all spent out. he wears resignation like a funeral shroud, and that’s how you’ll remember him if it goes like this. you don’t want it to go like this. you can’t let it go like this. 

he panics and throws the keys out the window, throws up his hands, and all you can think is, _ they’re about to have him. _

_ he’s about to be apart from me. _

_ he’s about to be apart from himself. _

_ no room for wolves in jail. _

_ ‘it’s not who we are’, _he says. you don’t understand. if this isn’t who you are, then what does that make of all that you’ve already done? where does it go now? you know this will keep you up at night if it ends like this. you don’t want it to end like this. 

‘_ now it’s my turn to take care of us.’ _you say. 

‘e_verything will be alright, i promise.’ _you say. 

you lock the doors and you hit the gas, and all you can see is all the people ahead that you’re offering as sacrifice for this. they left you no choice, you have to believe this. 

you have to believe this when you flip the cars; when you throw them into the sky and don’t look to see where they fall; when you don’t look back to see their mangled bodies twisted up into something of your own making. you have to. 

the bullets tap against the car like raindrops on the tin roof, just like that cabin in oregon you once called home. _ home. _ almost there— _ almost there. _

you blow through all the people and all the barricades and their cars and their weapons and everything they have that exists solely to keep you from this like shoving papers on a desk. 

you see the stretch of the motherland, spread out wide with open arms for you, and you smile so big you can hardly even believe it. you did. _ you did it for him _. finally, you’ve paid it all back. 

you point out the window, tapping on the glass, all that separates you from everything you’ve dreamt of for months and months. ‘_ sean, look! it’s mexico! it’s—“ _

you turn in hopes that his smile exceeds yours, you hope that there’s teeth, that his eye is shining wet with happy tears, and there’s high apples in his cheeks, and—

something’s wrong. 

everything’s wrong. 

there’s too much red in this picture—there’s not supposed to—this is wrong. 

this isn’t how it was supposed to go. his hand is on his throat. there’s red on his hands, on his chin, down his chest and soaking the collar of his hoodie. his favorite. 

the one you’d curl up into on the cold nights in washington. 

the one you’d grip the hood to when you rode around on his shoulders, like the reins on a horse. 

the one he’s sewn back together again and again because even after all this time, it’s still his favorite. 

you wonder, for a moment, if the blood will come out. like there’s any point. 

you grab onto him, his hands in yours, and you hold onto him as he breathes his last breath. and then you scream louder than you think you’ve ever screamed. 

you don’t know how many hours pass after that, but he’s cold. you’re not sure what you are. you’re not sure it matters anymore. 

you drive until you see a place befitting of him. somewhere where nobody can bother him anymore. somewhere worthy of him, where he can finally rest. they can take your dead body over his. 

you take everything that you have left of him—all you’ll ever have. his eyepatch. his bracelet. your father’s lighter, the one that reads ‘_ puerto lobos’. _even his last pack of cigarettes, one left inside. he was probably saving it. 

you reach for the hoodie. you drop your hands. no. that’s his. he’ll need it up there. he wouldn’t be sean without it. 

you’re too young to be burying your brother. you’re too young for anything you’ve had to do. 

we’re sorry it ended up this way. please know it’s not your fault. 

your arms are too weak to pick him up, so you use your godforsaken power to lift him out of the car. he’s too heavy. he’s heavier than anything you’ve ever lifted—any tree, any car, any army. 

you can’t stand it. it’s not right. it’s all wrong. it wasn’t supposed to be this way. 

you try and lower him down. no matter what, it doesn’t feel right. this isn’t how the story of the wolf brothers is supposed to end. how would it go, exactly?

_ the big brother was shot by the hunters, and died in the paws of the little wolf. _

no, no, no. 

_ the little wolf found a quiet place on the side of the road to lay his big brother down to rest, one last time. _

no, no, no. 

_ then the little wolf headed home all alone, without his big brother by his side. _

it’s a bad story. you were never the one telling it, though.that was his job. he wouldn’t have ended it this way, it would have been better. he would have been in it. 

you can’t stand seeing him floating there anymore, suspended flat on his back like he’s in an invisible coffin. you stand him up, where he seems to be on his feet, alive just enough to play this out. 

you lift his arms and extend them towards yourself. you walk into them, and you fold them behind your back, and you grip his hoodie tight in your fists as you cling to his. 

you don’t look at his face. you don’t look at the blood. he doesn’t cradle your head to his chest like he usually does. he doesn’t call you _ enano. _he doesn’t say anything. 

you finally lower him down. you don’t want to look, but you do. he looks like he’s finally home. you resist the urge to crawl in there with him and just wait it out. 

you pick all the wildflowers that you can find and slowly lower them down on top of him, like a shower of all your broken promises. this is as right as it’s going to get. that’s the worst part.

you think of the speech you gave when mushroom died. you think about the one you never got to give at your father’s funeral. you have no good point of reference for what to do next. 

_ thank you for keeping me safe, sean. i’m sorry i couldn’t do the same. i tried my best. i’m sorry it wasn’t enough. i’m sorry for all of this. we were just kids. i love you. i’m sorry that it had to end this way. i really didn’t mean for it to. i’m sorry it did anyway. pet mushroom for me. tell dad i love him. i’ll never forget. _

_ diaz brothers. always. _

they’re all things you don’t say out loud. all you can get out is ‘_ i’m so sorry.’ _before you crumple up like paper in a fist. 

you get back in the car. you drive home. the first thing you do when you find where home is is kill two people. 

you had no choice, they aimed their guns at you for walking in the front door. you know with crushing weight in your chest that this is your life now. your brother isn’t here to baby you anymore. 

the years go by like a prison sentence of your own ruling. you decided to live with this. 

you do bad things because you have no choice. you realize it’s the same exact thing he had to do on your behalf. you realize when you finally get the guts to read his journal that you had it easy with the superpowers. 

he would hate to see you living like this, and you know it. 

mexico is never where you wanted to be, and you know that if you had turned back then, you would have gotten off easy. but you wanted him to have this. you wanted all of it to be worth something. so this is it, then. your life sentence. 

you get a tattoo of your father on your chest, over your heart. 

you get a teardrop tattoo under your right eye, for sean. his face would have been too much, you already look at it every day in the mirror. 

you get a tattoo on your right arm of the grim reaper. he’s won, you’ve got nothing left. an easy enough reminder to take nothing for granted ever again, if you’re lucky enough to have it. 

you get a tattoo on your left arm of an hourglass frozen in time. branches and leaves wrap around and inside of it, and a skull hovers over it. between life and death. you’re not living, you’re just waiting. 

the closer you get to his age when he died, the more you look like his spitting image. sixteen. it was just a month before his birthday. he’ll never be any older, and you’ll die older than him. and it’s not right. and it’s not fair. but it’s how it is. 

on your sixteenth birthday you bleach your own hair in the bathroom sink. anything to change it, to take him away. you don’t want to imagine what he would have looked like now, at almost twenty-two. would you be taller? would he look more like you, or esteban? would you be happy? would he? 

over the years, you build the closest thing he’ll ever get to a memorial from anybody. you figure that they probably searched and found his body where you left it, it wasn’t too far from the border. you hope they left it. you try not to think about claire and stephen, or karen, or lyla, or any of your old friends you met on the journey. 

finn. he told you just the day before that he had kissed finn in on the farm. you found his number written on a love letter in his backpack when you went through it. 

‘_ give me a shout out when you get to mexico. always wanted to go and this might be a place i’d like to chill in. as long as you’re around. we gotta smoke a bowl. i think about you more than you might believe. finn.’ _

you typed the number out on a payphone several times. you never ended up calling it, though. you’re too afraid that you’ll hear ‘_ sweetie!?’ _on the other end. 

it’s hard enough living with your own mourning. you hope nobody mourns you, too. save it all for him. you’re going to become ocean foam eventually. that’s all that’s left for you here. 

but until then, you have to keep going, until the story of the wolf brothers gets the ending that you like. the one you tell your children and grandchildren, where there’s happiness at the end. the one where the wolf brothers are together again with their papa wolf, just like how it started. 

until then; it’s once upon a time—in a wild, wild world. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a little different from the other poems ive written (not sure if it even counts actually !) but i knew the second i saw lone wolf for the first time that i would be writing it to cope 😔 today we experience catharsis! tomorrow? who knows!


	5. cassidy

the first time you feel the sting of a stick n’ poke tattoo you’re fifteen years old, hanging out in the garage of your boyfriend kyle’s house— _ the one daddy doesn’t know about _ —and you think, for the first time, that you’d absolutely run away with him. 

you’ll run away without him, in the end, but you’ll still have the tattoo. it will always remind you to follow your gut, like a compass on your arm that’s always pointing one way— _ forward. _

when daddy finds out about your boyfriend he talks with his fists; and you realize that you really can’t stay; not looking at the swell of his cheek, at the blood on his lips, the ones that he kissed your forehead with just moments ago on the front porch before this bloodbath in your living room. 

you know you’re next, because your brother tells you as much, and you don’t get to say goodbye to kyle when he’s shoved out the front door. when it slams, you decide that’s a sound you never want to hear ever again. no more fucking doors. no more fucking houses. no more of things you ought to defend. 

as soon as your family goes to bed you pack your bag and run to kyle’s house, tugging at his arm, because you both deserve more than this place, so much better than bumfuck  _ fucking _ texas. he goes along with it, amusing you, until he remembers that he has a family that loves him, and he chooses them instead. too bad for you; all that waits for you at home is a shotgun in your brother’s hand, and you’ve made your choice. 

you hope if you  _ move _ quickly enough,  _ run _ fast enough,  _ keep your feet in different soil _ often enough, then maybe roots won’t dare to sprout from your heels. it’s the last thing you ever want. you’re swept up with the breeze, clinging to the back of a cat, the wings of a bird, whatever will take you—but you can’t stay here, and you can’t go home. 

you decide to cut love out of your life like it’s a weed, like as long as you have it clinging to your feet, then you will never grow—it will suck all the life from you at the roots. you tell yourself that this is your garden, each flower carefully selected, and you can admire each of them for what they’re worth, but as with any flower garden, you do not need them to survive. 

life has made a wasteland of your heart, and you live off of the rain alone. there is no tenderness spared for you. 

you build a church and lock the doors to it. you stand at the altar and pray to yourself. you only unlock the doors when you feel close enough to yourself to let others bear witness to this new version of you. sometimes you slam the doors shut again, and this will happen until you die. pray, rinse, repeat. 

you’re little more than a stray dog when finn and hannah find you, cowering away from them and snarling when they reach out to you. can’t they see your wounds? can’t they see how you’ve been hurt by hands before? of course they can. look at their scars. 

you hide your teeth and file down your claws just enough to hold onto them without scratching them up; you know you can always grow them back if you need them. 

you make a vow to yourself to never give your heart to anyone ever again; they’re only allowed your hands. you can always pull your hands back and away from anything or anyone. you can pack your bags with them, grab onto a freight car with those very fingers and leave it all in the dust, wave goodbye with them as you’re carried off to your next life, and wash them clean after. 

you can pull your fingers across guitar strings and play a blues song for the ones you’ve already left behind when you’ve gone, but never let it be a sad one. 

what you lack in intimacy with others, you make up for with lyric sheets and guitar picks. you write songs that talk about all the people that have ever done you wrong, and then you burn them. you write songs about yourself as if she’s a girl you’ve just met, because in a way, she is, and you want to get to know her better. she’s the coolest girl you know, your best friend and your lover, and she is all you will ever need. this is what she tells you. you try to always listen. 

your rail family; your real family; the ones who picked you up and put you back together again into something that resembled… something. somebody. a person again, not anger personified. you spent so long in that form that you wondered if there was any girl left of you, she seemed to have walked out the door with you and gone the other way, but she’s here. she’s right here. hold onto her hand and don’t let go of it.

the mirror in the gas station bathroom shows you a portrait of your mother so you throw your fist into it. even after it shatters, you can still see her eyes looking back at you, and the red on the tile. you ask finn to cut your hair that night. 

sing your heart out and let them listen to you, they’ll let you scream if you want to. nobody else ever has. 

you make room for a _little_ bit of love—only enough to give back what you’ve received from your family—it’s only fair, but you think it’s something. healing, maybe. these days you feel a little less broken up, a little more whole. try to keep it that way. 

you never know who you might meet, so keep your heart open with a crack in the door for someone special. no one can promise it will end well, but memories are always worth it, right? you’ll endure and survive, you always have. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this one a few months back and decided not to post it because I didn’t like it much, but it’s already been written so might as well! I miss Cassidy a lot these days 😔 I’m working on bigger stuff right now I promise I’ve not left! I kinda fell in love and got a boyfriend and stuff a bit (thanks to lis2 no less we love to see it!) so I’ve been a little off schedule BUT!!!!!! it’s still coming! I love you guys!!!! See you soon!!


	6. redemption

when you get down on the ground the first thing you do is turn to your brother and smile. this isn’t a victory for you, and you have so much left to pay, but at least he is safe. you’ve always done it all for him; this is just the final act.

this is the part where the audience claps because you were brave, because you sacrificed yourself for his happiness. nobody will remember that you were your own child. nobody will remember what you lost. 

they’ll see it as a victory; that at least one of you is not rotten. it’s a fair trade in the eyes of the people. you’re disposable. 

the handcuffs they put on you feel like redemption and you don’t know why. you could have sworn you never did anything wrong to end up here—so why, then? 

the water is all muddy. it’s all started to blend together. you’re just tired. you just want it to be over, that’s it. you’ve betrayed yourself. go directly to jail. do not pass go. do not collect two-hundred dollars. 

you stare at your brother from the back of the police car until he’s too far away to see anymore. you become sharply aware of the fact that this is how it will be from now on. you try not to think about waking up to him in your arms in the forest; in your grandparents guest bed; in a tent in california; on a cliff; watching the arizona sunrise—

he’s shaking you awake, telling you to look at it, that it’s beautiful, and all you can do is agree. _ yeah. good call. _

when you look out the window at it now it just hurts your one good eye. you better take it in for all it’s worth, though. who knows when you’ll see it next like this? whole, and not sliced up into slivers by the bars of your jail cell, spreading none of its warmth across your skin. 

you feel like you’ve lost more than you had when you were walking in the scorching nevada desert with blisters on your skin. and it’s true. at least you had hope left, then. 

this isn’t such a big story, one where there’s a light at the end, where you come out victorious and make it to the magicland. this one has you willingly heading into the dark cave and knowing it will be a long time before you find your way back home. 

you’ll be in the sequel, maybe, where you’ll be reunited with all the old characters that helped you along the way. they’ll be older and wiser and they’ll have moved on without you, because that was a part of the story you weren’t in. 

you hope your sacrifice helped people, at least. that maybe your absence did more good than harm. that you were the hero, somehow. it hurts too much to stomach if you weren’t. 

fifteen years is what you get. they tell you you’re lucky that it’s ‘_only’ _fifteen years. 

you just turned seventeen. you’ll have lived almost your entire lifetime over by the time you’re free again, you’ll be a fully-grown man, and so will daniel. 

so will daniel. 

suddenly, it hits you. you’re going to miss everything. 

those talks between the glass won’t ever be enough. you are going to miss your brother growing up, and that hurts even worse than missing out on your own growing up, because that’s what all of this was for. 

you threw your childhood away the second you took off with him in your arms. you expected to get to hang onto it. you didn’t. there’s no getting it back. 

you don’t want to look back at him when the officers lead you away in handcuffs. it feels too painfully familiar, too much like the time you looked out the police car window as you were pulled away from him the first time. 

you didn’t want to admit it, but you were a little hopeful then. not anymore, no, that was crushed flat under the gavel. you pretend you don’t hear daniel wailing when the door shuts. 

fifteen years is a long time. 

in your first fifteen years of life you were born to two parents, you met lyla, you got a little brother, your mother left, you went to school, you went to work, you went to parties, to concerts, on trips with your family—it all went by pretty damn fast. 

that’s childhood though, right? or is it? you can’t remember what being a child is like anymore, not these days. the last time was maybe in humboldt county, smoking weed around a campfire with a bunch of kids who had forgotten, too. 

it’s funny, really. you got so caught up in the turmoil of losing your childhood that you didn’t even consider the idea that they’d take your adulthood from you, too. you’ll spend all of your twenties in a prison cell, get out at thirty-two, and then what? you’ll still be a child, chewed up and spit out by the system and thrown into the world a shell of who you once were to figure it out.

fifteen years is a long time, but time starts to not matter so much after the first few years. you think about those eight months on the road every single day that they get farther away. it seemed so awful then, and it was, but you can’t help but think you’d do it all over again over this. 

that’s a selfish thought, though. you realize this when daniel visits you—his cheeks fuller, his clothes new and clean and no bags under his eyes. he tells you about school and his new dog and what his friends have been up to lately. every once in a while, he whispers to you about somebody he helped recently, or a school bus he stopped from going off a cliff. you remember this is why you’re here. 

the only thing that keeps you somewhat sane when daniel’s not visiting is art. you’re allowed to have paper and anything that’s not too sharp to draw with, and you make the best of it. 

you can’t do studies anymore, not in here. that’d be awfully depressing, so you draw what keeps your head up. you draw for daniel, mostly. comics of _ superwolf, _showcasing all of his acts of heroism. it’s the best way you can show him that you’re proud. 

he cries almost every time you pull out a new piece of paper for him; holds it in his hands so carefully, as if he’s convinced it’ll crumble to dust like a dead leaf in his palm if he grips it too hard. 

he’s lost too much. so have you. it’s not over yet. 

you notice karen visiting less than she did at first. you wonder if it’s just inconvenient for her to come or if it’s guilt, but then you remember she’s not ever been too good at feeling guilty about anything. it still sucks to admit, but you can kind of get it now. 

when she _ does _ come she updates you on daniel and all her friend in _ away. _she tells you that arthur and stanley finally got married, even after years of saying it didn’t really matter to them if it was official or not. you think about finn. you wonder if maybe, in another life, one where you had gone to mexico and called his number on that letter—

you hope he’s doing well. 

you start avoiding reflective surfaces altogether. not that there’s many spare mirrors sitting around in prison, but even the water in the mop buckets makes you turn your head. you wonder how your beard looks, sometimes. you wonder how you look with the glass eye they fitted you with. you wonder how much you look like your father, or don’t. you wonder if he’d even recognize you now. 

years and years go by and the only way you know this for certain is that daniel’s a lot taller, karen’s got wrinkles, and your grandparents aren’t able to visit you anymore. you’re sure you’ve aged like shit, but you can’t know for sure. your beard’s gotten fuller than your father’s ever was, and you know you probably look older at thirty than he did when he died at forty-five. 

you don’t feel any relief when they remind you that you’re about to be released. fifteen years ago this day was all that kept you going, and now that it’s here, you feel sick. you don’t know what it’s like out there anymore. how much will have changed? how will the world look at you? how will you ever adapt after everything? 

you’re still seventeen. you’re a thirty-two year old child. you’re still staring at the mexico border from the wheel of the car wondering if you’re making the right choice. you still wonder if you did. 

they give you the few belongings you had in a duffle bag. you slip on the eyepatch right away, you aren’t ready to see the glass eye yet. you look for one thing in particular; an old sketchbook, a birthday gift from your father. ‘_sean diaz, do not open.’, _it read on the front. 

the whole thing was read out loud in court for the trial, the entirety of your journey with daniel, your therapy. it’s not here. of course they kept it. add that to the list of things you’re never getting back. 

you feel so incredibly small stepping out into the sun when they let you free, like an ant under a magnifying glass being lit aflame. 

daniel’s there, of course, tall and bearded and a twenty-five year old man. that’s never going to stop hurting. karen’s next to him, looking so much older than you remember her looking the last time she came. you don’t remember when that was. she’s wearing a familiar rainbow windbreaker vest. joan must have passed away at some point. you wonder when that was. 

you’re so overwhelmed that you don’t even notice a third person at first, you weren’t expecting anyone else, but she’s the only one who looks the same as you remember. 

when she runs into your arms and crushes you in a hug you feel like a child again for the first time in nearly twenty years. you’ll never regret calling her, even when it was a stupid idea. best freaking fighters, forever. 

adjusting is as hard as you imagined it would be, but not exactly in the _ way _you imagined it would be. nobody gives you weird looks in public, but you can’t remember how to pump gas, because now the pumps look like alien software, and you cry in the car when daniel tells you that he’ll just do it instead. 

you _ do _look older than your father, but more than that, you look like a stranger to yourself. the only thing you recognize is your right eye, but everything else belongs to somebody else, a version of you you’ve never met. 

it feels like greeting a family member you haven’t seen since you were little, and they look so different from what you remember in your head that you wonder if you ever met them at all. 

somehow, that’s better than seeing yourself again. you remember the first time you looked in the mirror after losing your eye, how you had looked then with the cuts all over your face and your hair buzzed to the scalp. 

it’s the same thing all over again, except now you have a beard, and instead of an empty socket you now have a solid white marble sitting in place of it. you look eerily like brody. something about that feels good, you’d love to be like brody. 

you decide to keep the beard. 

  
  


you feel guilty. even sitting in daniel’s apartment surrounded by your friends and family, a free man at last, you don’t feel happy. looking at him, you feel _ good. _ you’re proud, you’re _ incredibly _proud, and he’s lived a good life, but now that you’ve paid your dues you have nothing of you left. it feels like you were a resource that’s all dried up and spent out. you’re in the sequel, and you still feel like you’re stuck in the cave. 

after sixteen years of waiting you finally see where your father’s buried. you’re grateful that daniel’s taken good care of it, there’s already a bouquet of fresh flowers laid at his headstone when you go to place yours. you run your fingers along the words engraved into the hunk of marble and feel your wrist freeze when you get to _ ~2016. _

1452 lewis avenue. tacky halloween decorations. lyla the love witch. daniel playing zombie in the front yard. 

the front yard. 

daniel lies with you in his arms on top of your father’s grave while you sob until you throw up in the grass and you’re so ashamed of yourself that you ride in the back seat when you leave. you don’t know what will ever make this better. 

you want to get your life together, if there’s any point. you tell yourself there will be, you just have to find it. you pass your driver’s test and finally get your license, and daniel surprises you with a gift that rips your heart out in a way you didn’t think was possible anymore. the car that dad was fixing up for your graduation. the one you never got the chance to drive. 

he’s saying something about how he’s made sure everything’s running and he’s all the old parts replaced but you feel like you’re underwater and he sounds so far away. 

you open the door and slide into the driver’s seat. there’s a faded old sticky-note on the dash with scribbled ink on it. ‘_ hope you have fun on all your hot dates, seanie-boy! don’t drink and drive. always call me if you need me. love, papito.’ _

_ i love you too, dad. _

daniel helps you look for jobs, but every time you get an interview, you cancel. it doesn’t feel right. you don’t know why but you don’t feel ready, like there’s something you need to do first and you don’t know what _ it _is. 

daniel’s patient as ever, and you know he doesn’t mind, but sleeping on his couch feels a little worse every day you wake up on it. you almost feel like you owe karen an apology, you keep glancing at the door. 

what do you need, then? what is going to fill this hole in your chest? think back, and think hard. when did you last feel most alive? was it living at home, going to school and working retail, worrying about college and being an adult? you know it wasn’t. 

it was eight months on the open road. it was when you were traveling between state lines, meeting new people every day, living like wolves up in the woods. as horrible as it was, as much hell as you went through, you remember how much you loved the good parts, and how you’d pretend it was just a road trip when you could to make it bearable. you want to do it again, and do it right this time. 

you bring it up to daniel. you ask him if he’d like to come, to be the wolf brothers together again—but he’s not like you anymore. he’s got a job, a home, a community—he’s got a place in this world. he can’t do it and that hurts. it’s why you threw away fifteen years of your life, though. you don’t know what else you expected. 

he proposes an idea that makes your chest ache just to think about, but it sounds good. it sounds like it might be what you need, and that’s all you want, is to _ know what you need. _

you pack up a small suitcase of everything you want to take with you; nothing heavy. you remember words from an old friend, a long time ago. 

_ that’s how shit starts, you know? when you start havin’ things of your own… things you ought to defend. property, land, family. what do you think you’re missin’ out on now? _

you don’t know. 

you want to find out. 

you follow daniel all the way back up to washington. even from the car, it’s all flooding back. you walked this exact road on foot for miles and miles in the opposite direction. you know now that you may as well have turned back then, but you know all things considered, it was worth the journey. the best and worst time of your whole life. 

you park on the edge of the road, right where you first walked into the woods so many years ago. daniel didn’t even know his father was dead yet back then; just a couple of kids playing with sticks and skipping stones on the water, and you swallowing your grief down like shards of glass. 

nostalgia eats you alive like a coyote tearing right into your throat. so much is the same; the trail, the markers on the trees, daniel excitedly walking ahead of you, and you’re trailing behind, feeling like the only thing that’s changed. 

it’s funny. you were so worried about the world out there being different when you got out, but it’s just you. who is sean diaz anymore? you wish you could ask the boy who carried his brother into these woods in full confidence that he’d be able to outrun his fate sixteen years ago. in all his terror, he probably knows the answer better than you do. oh, how you envy him. 

you replicate your first night in these woods down to every last detail by building a fire under the same rock den you did back then. daniel’s so much older, so much bigger than he was then, but he’s still daniel.

he waves his arms around excitedly as he tells you various stories of things you missed while you sat in prison staring at the wall. it feels like the roles are reversed in this scene this time. he’s trying to keep you calm, and you’re scared of the bears out in the trees. 

it hits you fully, finally. there’s no getting back what you’ve lost. not your own childhood, and not daniel’s either. you’re both grown up and there is no way to redeem yourself that will gift you the ability to go back in time.

it’s always going to be this; stories that you can try your best to imagine like you were there, but everybody will always know where you really were. they won’t say it, like it’s a dirty word, but it’s a part of you now. there’s no sean diaz without those ugly fifteen years stamped onto your life like a passport. 

daniel’s in the middle of telling you about his first kiss with a boy when you remember yours. it was with chris, no less. they’re engaged now. you try not to be heartbroken that you missed that, too. at least they held off the wedding.

you think about finn again. you think about arthur and stanley. you think about the fact that you’re thirty-two and haven’t had a kiss since, and the fact that you could have fallen in love, but that was taken from you, too. 

you feel so selfish and ridiculous for bursting into tears. you feel like such a fucking child when daniel has to rock you in his arms to calm you back down and keeps apologizing for bringing it up. 

_ sorry, I forgot. you told me back then, remember? I should’ve known better. _

none of it’s fair. you deserve to have the capacity to be happy _ and _be happy for daniel. you feel too numb for your own comfort. this isn’t who you are. 

you’re surprised when you wake up the next morning and feel… clarity? the sense that something better is coming, maybe. oh, right. there’s a name for that. 

hope. 

it feels right when you’re walking out of the woods and back to your car with daniel, like you’re getting ready to meet yourself somewhere, as soon as you find him.

you always said you’d never let yourself be separated from daniel again, but this isn’t that. this isn’t staring at his from the back of a police car in handcuffs. 

this is a choice, a _ see you later. we’ll talk as soon as I get somewhere with wifi. promise, I’ll call. I love you. get home safe. _

you get into the car that your dad wanted you to grow up in, and after much too long, you’re finally about to. you drive away first, watching daniel in the rearview mirror as he waves excitedly. he’s almost out of view when you see him cup his hands around his mouth, tilting his head back. you can’t hear him, but you know well enough. 

you howl as loud as you can, even though all the windows are rolled up and daniel’s over the hill already. maybe a lot has changed, and you have too, but there’s one thing that never will. the tale of the two wolf brothers. 

it’s time for you to write your own story, big brother. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not so sure these can be called poems anymore, they’re way too fucking LONG, but I’m not sure what that makes them so my apologies 😔 I started working on this pretty shortly after I finished the one I did for lone wolf and both have helped me sort out my feelings towards both endings a lot I really hope they might can help others, but this is only my interpretation. Thank you to everybody for all the support, it means the world to me!! 
> 
> p.s I’m still working on chapter 7 of i’m glad you got away, thank you for your patience! I’ll be back soon!

**Author's Note:**

> These started as word vomit at 4 am and they still are, but I figured I would post them as a little something between big uploads on the wastelands fic. I’m definitely planning on doing more of these types of poems for other characters as well maybe even lis1 characters if I get around to it! I hope u enjoy!


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